The just-released 2011 annual report of the Social Security Trustees shows a significant worsening of the program’s finances.

Last year we were told that we would see payroll tax surpluses over benefit expenditures for a few more years — until 2015. That won’t happen according to the 2011 report; the program will now add to federal deficits in every future year — and increasingly so, which will ramp-up financial pressure to downsize other federal programs, increase taxes, or create yet more debt.

Note that both Republicans and Democrats negotiating over how to reduce federal deficits and the national debt have resolved to leave Social Security untouched for now.  That leaves the program’s finances to fester and worsen — increasing the costs of future adjustments and burdens on future generations.

Many people, especially those who favor early reforms, say that the Social Security trust funds “don’t matter.”  Note, however, that they lock up future federal revenues for Social Security benefit payments — on par with future dedicated payroll taxes.

The lock-up effect of the Social Security trust funds  is demonstrated by the fact that the program’s cash flow deficits today are not forcing any benefit cuts or payroll tax increases.  This can continue until the year 2036 according to the 2011 report.

But if we allow the situation to continue for that long, fixing the program will require a permanent benefit cut of at least 25 percent or a payroll tax increase of at least 40 percent of payrolls in 2036 and beyond.

Most left-leaning politicians and analysts are unwilling to entertain any benefit cuts today.  They favor tax increases today.  But those will fall on today’s and future workers, destroying their incentives to work and ability to save for the future.

Retirees, on the other hand, can continue to enjoy Social Security benefits that are much more generous compared to what they paid in when working.  So to hold all, including well-off, retirees harmless from a “shared sacrifice” approach to fixing Social Security’s finances seems unfair.

The trust fund also “matters” because it provides fodder to the argument of left-leaning politicians that the program’s finances are sound, backed by $2.6 trillion in Trust Fund treasury securities.  That $2.6 trillion sounds like a lot of money to the average Joe on the street. But consider that past and current generations, who together contributed an extra $2.6 trillion to Social Security, are now owed much more under the program’s current laws — a whopping $18.8 trillion according to the 2011 report.

The program’s long-term actuarial deficit (over 75 years) is now 2.2 percentage points of payrolls.  That’s 30 basis points larger than was the case in last year’s report, by far the largest increase in recent memory . That’s surely because of poorer prospects today compared to last year of experiencing a rapid recovery of productivity, output, and payroll tax revenues.

Finally, Mark Warshawsky, my friend and colleague on the Social Security Advisory Board, notes that this year’s Trustees’ report has been released on a Friday during the afternoon — the right day to release bad news because policymakers and the public are usually busy planning or traveling for weekend activities.

The 2011 Social Security Trustees Report — Harbinger of Bad News is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday I had an op-ed in Politico suggesting that U.S. lawmakers should consider not raising the federal debt limit (at least for now). I argued that freezing the ceiling would assure investors that the United States is serious about reducing its debt, and that it would serve as a commitment device for lawmakers and President Obama to forge and follow a serious debt-reduction strategy.

A financial website writer named Joe Weisenthal strongly disagreed with my column. He seems to misunderstand several of the points that I was making, and so I offer the following response to his comments:

From Weisenthal’s post:

Another day, another economist advocating that the US default on its debt.

The latest is Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute, who has a big piece advocating an immediate freeze of the debt ceiling.

It’s so convoluted, we hardly know where to begin, but let’s just address a few sloppy parts.

Many knowledgeable federal officials, like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, as well as left-leaning lawmakers, insist that the answer lies in lifting the debt limit. They warn Congress about the dire consequences if it fails to do so. President Barack Obama has chimed in — though he voted against raising it when he was a senator.

They all assert that failing to increase the debt limit could sharply undermine the economic recovery.

But that view could be wrong. A temporarily frozen debt limit could instead signal U.S. lawmakers’ resolve to get our fiscal house in order. It may even reassure investors about long-term U.S. economic prospects.

This line about “reassuring investors” is nonsense. Investors are already reassured, which is why interest rates have only fallen amidst all the squawking from the political class about this “crisis.”

From the start, Weisenthal doesn’t follow my argument. I am not concerned about the state of market confidence today, but what it would be if the debt limit were frozen. The contrarian view that I expressed in my op-ed is that participants would interpret a debt-limit freeze positively, just as they appear to have interpreted the recent downgrade of the U.S. economic outlook by Standard and Poor’s positively — U.S. equities, U.S. treasuries, and the dollar are up less than 48 hours after S&P’s downgrade announcement.

He also misunderstands why interest rates have declined. It is because of the Federal Reserve’s sustained intervention in bond markets, not because there is little investor concern over the United States’ long-term fiscal outlook.

Returning to Weisenthal’s post:

He then gets to the discussion of a default.

…the current prospect of a technical default, from failing to increase the debt limit, would not be due to any real national insolvency. Given today’s low interest rates, the federal government could easily raise the resources needed to meet today’s contractual government obligations.

This doesn’t make any sense. How do “low interest rates” matter to the government in a situation where it’s legally unable to borrow?

Here, Weisenthal misunderstands what it means to freeze the debt limit. It does not mean, as he believes, that the government is “legally unable to borrow.” It only means that the government cannot issue any additional debt beyond the limit. But the government can (and will) continue to roll over its existing debt, and must do so at current interest rates, which makes those rates relevant to the discussion.

More Weisenthal:

Anyway, here’s the biggest whopper of them all:

How might investors really view this ersatz U.S. debt crisis? If some lawmakers’ refusal to vote for increasing the debt limit without also passing prudential fiscal policies resulted in a technical U.S. default, it would demonstrate their significant political strength.

Might that not actually induce investors to buy long-term U.S. debt — reducing long-term interest rates and improving the U.S. investment climate?

Oy, where to begin? First of all, the notion that a “technical default” would induce investors to buy long-term U.S. debt is prima facie absurd.

Perhaps he knows something I don’t, but I don’t see this as absurd at all. I’d expect that a serious commitment by political leaders to get the nation’s fiscal affairs in order would inspire investor confidence in U.S. securities. If anything, it’s absurd to think that investors would be encouraged by Weisenthal’s preferred policy of the nation continuing to expand its borrowing without a plan to manage its debt.

Back to his post:

Second, as we stated above, longterm US interest rates are at historical lows, so the idea of needing to reduce them further to improve the US investment climate is rubbish. And finally, why do we want people to buy more long-term US debt? Ideally we want people going out and actually investing in things with their money: companies, employees, lending to corporations, etc. Aren’t debt hawks supposed to hate the idea of government borrowing crowding out private spending. [sic]

The problem with this comment is that today’s historically low interest rates are not a reflection of freely operating market forces. They result from the Fed’s massive interventions through its Quantitative Easing policy.  The Fed has increased its portfolio of market assets — now approaching a staggering $2.7 trillion — in part by purchasing treasuries with longer maturity than it used to purchase before 2008. Without that injection of liquidity (note to Ben Bernanke: I didn’t say the Fed is “printing money”), market rates would be much higher.

Weisenthal does rightly worry about the effect of U.S. government finance on other sectors of the financial market. Fortunately, investors are beginning to branch out beyond government securities. But even as the Fed has been purchasing so many Treasuries to keep interest rates artificially low and fund the government, it has also purchased private assets because investors have not been buying U.S. private assets as much as they used to. The Fed has been propping up particular U.S. sectors (e.g., securitized finance, insurance, auto, home, credit card loans) to keep them from failing. If you removed the Fed’s $2.7 trillion liquidity injection from markets, interest rates would be much higher today. (How the Fed should conduct monetary policy is a different topic, beyond the scope of this post.)

Government officials are afraid that investor exits from Treasuries (and U.S. assets in general, both government and private) will accelerate if the debt limit is frozen, as I mentioned in the Politico article. I’m suggesting that view might be incorrect.

Weisenthal concludes:

Basically, Gokhale is just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall, failing to produce an argument, and hoping you don’t really get it. Sorry.

Respectfully, I think my argument is quite coherent, though I admit it’s not the conventional view offered by many other commentators. Indeed, that’s why I wrote the op-ed.

Response to Joe Weisenthal’s Critique of My Politico Opinion Piece is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Last Friday’s PBS NewsHour included a debate between NYT columnist David Brooks and WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus on the budget fights on Capitol Hill. Marcus was sitting in for NewsHour regular Mark Shields, whose comments I find thoughtful and worth contemplating. Unfortunately, on Friday Marcus didn’t meet Shield’s standard.

In discussing House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan’s proposal that Medicaid be converted to a block grant program with the states taking a broader administrative role, Marcus offers:

RUTH MARCUS: The cuts in here are so dramatic. They are so painful. And they — and many of them are focused — I know this is not his intention, but he turns, for example, Medicaid, which is the health-care program for poor people, into a block grant. You give it to states.

But then it just doesn’t grow enough to deal with the increase in health-care costs. Well, what happens to these people?

Is she serious!?

Marcus seems not to understand that government subsidies to health care consumption, in the form of such programs as Medicare and Medicaid as well as employer tax exclusions for health insurance benefits, contribute to the rapid growth in health care costs. That is, by flooding the health care market with government money, the market ends up with many dollars chasing few worthwhile health care products, which results in rising health care prices. Moreover, the subsidies siphon away health care resources from the private-payer health care market, causing cost in that sector to increase rapidly as well.

Subsidies aren’t the only government policies contributing to rising health care costs. Government restrictions on the supply of health care services also play a role. Among those supply restrictions are the ban on drug importation, a very costly and difficult new-drug testing regime, and unnecessarily restrictive licensing of health care professionals.

The rapid rise in health care costs is primarily the consequence of government policies. For Marcus to say that we should maintain the current subsidy system for health care because, without it, Medicaid patients won’t be able to keep up with health care cost increases is … well … not very good commentary.

When Too Much Money’s the Problem… is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan is ostensibly for FY 2012, but it contains reforms with far-reaching implications for the nation’s fiscal condition.

Most of the action in his plan is on the spending side and mainly on health care entitlements: Medicare and Medicaid.  Many pundits on the left are claiming it is a political document rather than a serious budget proposal, especially because it lacks details on many of its proposed policy changes. 

One thing that stands out, as pointed out by David Leonhardt in the NYT, is that Ryan’s plan exempts people older than age 55 from bearing any share of the adjustment costs.  They should, instead, be called upon to share some of the burden, Leonhardt argues — a point that I agree with.  If seniors are receiving tens of thousands of dollars more than what they paid in for Medicare, then they should not be allowed to hide behind the tired old argument of being too old to bear any adjustment cost.  Indeed, seniors hold most of the nation’s assets and a progressive-minded reform would ask them to fork over a small share to relieve the financial burden that must otherwise be imposed on young workers and future generations.

The numbers presented by Leonhardt are computed by analysts at the Urban Institute.  However, those numbers aren’t quite as one-sided as Leonhardt and Urban scholars suggest, because they only compare Medicare payroll taxes by age group to Medicare benefits.  A large part of Medicare benefits (Medicare’s outpatient care, physicians’ fees, and federal premium support for prescription drugs) are financed out of general tax revenues, not just Medicare taxes. General tax revenues, of course, include revenues from income taxes, indirect taxes, and other non-social-insurance taxes and fees.  Seniors pay some of those taxes as well — especially by way of capital income and capital gains taxes — but the Urban calculations fail to account for this.  That means that the net benefit to seniors from Medicare is smaller than Leonhardt claims in his column.  I don’t know whether it would bring the per-person Medicare taxes and benefits as close to each other as they are for Social Security, however. (See Leonhardt’s column for more on this point.)

Leonhardt also notes that Chairman Ryan’s proposal leaves out revenue increases as a potential solution to the growing debt problem.  Leonhardt argues that wealthy individuals (mostly large and small entrepreneurs) received high returns on assets during the last few years (pre-recession) and could afford to pay more in taxes.

But it would be poor policy to raise these entrepreneurs’ income taxes — that would distort incentives to work, invest, innovate, and hire in their businesses.  Instead, policymakers should consider reducing high-earners’ Medicare and Social Security benefits (premium supports under the Ryan plan) in a progressive manner, including allowing them to opt out of Medicare and Social Security completely if they wish to.

During recent business trips to a few Midwestern towns, I met several investors and professionals in real estate, financial planning, and manufacturing concerns, most of whom expressed their willingness to forego social insurance benefits during retirement.  So there seems to be some public support for such a reform of social insurance programs.

Why Should Social Insurance Reform Not Affect Those Over Age 54? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

It’s kudos to President Obama’s Debt Commission co-chairs for clearly outlining the gargantuan size of the fiscal problem facing the United States.  The reforms will re-direct the exploding debt trajectory downward by reforming taxes and cutting spending – reminiscent of recent fiscal reforms in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, history is likely to repeat itself: Even if they are enacted soon — which seems unlikely — chances are bleak that we’ll stick with them for long enough to achieve their stated goals.

The Debt Commission co-chairs have done a stellar job in framing the nation’s fiscal challenge and placing it squarely before the American public. The contrast between the current trajectory that increases the national debt beyond 80 percent of GDP by 2040 and one of declining debt under their reforms likely to be consistent with long-term economic growth because the Commission also proposes limiting government spending to 21 percent of GDP — is striking.

The Commission has marked wide-ranging reforms — to broaden the federal tax base, reduce income tax rates and simplify the tax system; cut discretionary expenditures that are unaffordable and antiquated in all spheres; reduce long-term health care cost growth, and restore Social Security to financial solvency through a combination of benefit cuts and revenue measures.

It’s sad but true that the political barriers stacked up against this promising approach appear to be insurmountable.  Given the make-up of Congress and with Obama as President, the chance that something even remotely resembling the Commission’s proposals would be enacted is negligibly small.  With the Democratic majority in the Senate, President Obama is unlikely to even have to use his veto.

But what if my conjecture is proved incorrect and a roughly similar set of reforms is enacted in 2011?  Remember that our fiscal problem is of a long-term nature.  It is produced by an aging population; rapid health care cost growth; slower revenues from a flagging economy as a large cohort of experienced workers retires; slowing education and skill acquisition by younger workers; and slower capital formation as more resources are consumed by an aging population.  The commission’s reforms have to be enacted and maintained for at least 30 years to deliver its “target” debt-to-GDP ratio of 40 percent.  History tells us that such an outcome is quite unlikely.  For example, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 — that helped President Clinton accumulate his now much touted laurel as a fiscal conservative — was maintained for just 12 years — until Congressional Budget Office projections revealed “budget surpluses as far as the eye could see” in 2002.  With those projections in hand, lawmakers raced to the exits: the BEA was abandoned and federal spending shot through the roof.  Even as conservative a policy maven as Alan Greenspan shone a green light to adopt budget busting tax cuts.

To improve the chances that history does not repeat itself, the commission’s proposals need to be combined with proposals to reform the budget process.  The first thing to consider on that score is to use better budget measures to assess if reforms are achieving their goals. Stating those goals in terms of the national debt and annual cash flow deficits is unlikely to work – just as those measures have not worked for the European Union in the context of their now defunct Stability and Growth Pact.

Federal debt and the current budget deficit that is reported on the government’s books is the result of past policies and outcomes.  They summarize where we came from, not where we’re going.  If the commission’s reforms are enacted, a better method would be to anchor judgment about their success on the size of prospective debt—the value in today’s dollars of all future deficits that the federal government would incur under the new policies; alternatively under premature abandonment of those policies – as happened in 2002 when the BEA was abandoned.  It is also important to know whether the sacrifices that the commission’s policies require from today’s generations are fairly distributed and are being invested for the future rather than being dissipated.  For example, will the Social Security surpluses that the reforms generate be effectively saved and invested, or would they promote additional government spending as in the past? Without a budget process that delivers real investments for the future, and without metrics to measure their operation properly, chances are that even if Congress and the President enact them into law next year, the reforms will be abandoned too soon.

Debt Commission Reform Proposals – What Are Their Chances? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In today’s WSJ, William Shipman and Peter Ferrara have a column criticizing President Obama’s recent and vehement rejection of Social Security private accounts. I agree with Shipman and Ferrara — it’s rather shabby logic from a president of all Americans.

Shipman and Ferrara correctly note that Social Security privatization options provide participants with a choice — opt for private accounts or stay with the traditional system. In other words, people can choose their preferred risk set — political or market.  The lesson here is that there’s no avoiding risk.

Shipman and Ferrara suggest that all investments in private Social Security accounts do not have to be in stocks; people can choose bonds as well.  Better yet, they can hold the market basket of all stocks and bonds through low-cost index funds and hold some cash.  They can select the mix between these elements to optimize the risk-return trade-off given their abilities/preferences on the two. This investment strategy is transparent and easy to learn; it requires only a modicum of financial literacy.

However, I find their ”Joe the Plumber” example unpersuasive. Who cares if investing on the planet Mars yields 50 percent annual returns if we cannot do it unconditionally — that is, without incurring costs that would neutralize its higher-than-Social Security returns?  Those additional costs arise from having to borrow to pay existing Social Security beneficiaries their “promised” benefits, and from carrying market risks on personal account portfolios of Martian investments. 

Market risk represents a real cost, even if investments are for the long term.  The Shipman/Ferrara calculations take account of the recent financial crisis.  But they don’t take account of the potential for fat tails in the distribution of financial crises going forward.  The recent crisis could have been less severe.  But what if it had been more severe and had wiped out all savings for many more people?  Is there zero risk of such an outcome? A generalization on the basis of just one 40-year record of investment returns is inappropriate and insufficient for ruling out the importance of market risk.

In the authors’ defense, however, is the fact that the historical evidence of market returns is conditional on the existence of Social Security (and Medicare and the rest of the government’s panoply of welfare programs, regulations, etc.).  Without such broad and deep government interference in markets, the history of capital returns may have been different: returns may have been smaller (because the economy may have been better capitalized) but also more stable. And correlations between worker average wage growth and capital market returns may also have been smaller, yielding important diversification benefits from a privatized system of retirement saving.  But the bottom line is that we just don’t have adequate data of the correct type to make the “analytical” arguments that the authors attempt in their op-ed.  

Shipman and Ferrara (jointly and individually) have never explicated this latter argument clearly. They persist with their “higher-and-sexy-market-returns” argument in support of private Social Security accounts.  As such, I’m compelled to say that their argument continues to exhibit a real and serious deficiency.

On balance, however, when faced with two extremes — 1) political risk that the government will muck things up so badly that we and our children will suffer considerably reduced living standards, and 2) market risks that could devastate retirement savings because a recession/depression wipes out the value of lifetime savings — I would recommend an “interior solution” that straddles both worlds.  That is, continue a strictly limited government-run Social Security system and supplement it with a privatized element as many other countries have done, the UK and Australia being important examples. 

Some would say that we have such a system already, in the form of 401k, IRA and other tax-qualified saving plans. However, not all workers have access to 401k plans.  And the evidence is that despite those plans, national saving has declined considerably over the last three decades.  My analysis suggests that the reason for the decline in saving is the very existence of (supposedly) government-guaranteed Social Security (and Medicare) benefits that lull us into a false sense of security.  The key shortcoming is the lack of a system of universal Social Security personal accounts wherein a minimum amount of saving is mandatory (despite government mandates being bad in general). Such a system would provide a vehicle for the rich and the poor alike to partake of the wealth creation process that capital markets can and do provide. 

We’re not there today, and the correct direction from where we are is toward, not away, from Social Security personal accounts.

The Correct Perspective on Social Security Privatization is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Liberal posturing on Social Security reform continues unabated – betraying nervousness that Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission will recommend Social Security benefit cuts. 

Left-wing voices also continue to repeat the mantra that introducing private Social Security accounts would be a bad idea. Ronald Brownstein’s recent recent column in the National Journal is a case in point. However, Brownstein’s readers may come away thinking that he believes breaking promises is a good idea.

Brownstein concedes that “Social Security indeed faces a long-term imbalance between expected revenue and promised benefits.” I consider this to be progress — at least relative to the erstwhile “there’s nothing wrong and nothing to fix” mantra adopted by liberal adherents of the status quo on Social Security.

Notice Brownstein’s use of the term “promised benefits.”  A promise implies a commitment and obligation to make good on future benefit payments.  But the solution that Mr. Brownstein points to is as follows:

Instead [of private accounts], Obama argued, the two parties could emulate the Reagan model and arrive at a sensible solution… [T]he program’s long-term shortfall could be eliminated just by trimming benefits for the top half of earners [JG note: breaking the Social Security benefit promise here], linking the retirement age to lengthening life spans [JG note: breaking the promise here too], and imposing a partial payroll tax on earnings above $250,000 [JG note: that is, promise more benefits by expanding the definition of covered earnings and increasing payroll taxes on high earners].”

But all that the last element may achieve is to stave of the program’s insolvency for a few more years. 

My comment:  Please don’t drag Reagan into this “solution.”  The 1983 reforms were implemented under the gun, at a time when there was no way out of Social Security’s imminent revenue shortfall. If President Reagan had enjoyed the luxury of a couple more years to plan changes to Social Security, he would have adopted a different approach, and be much better off today. According to broad market indexes such as the S&P 500, total returns averaged well above 10 percent per year during the 1980s and 90s – so, well above inflation. (The first decade of the 2000s yielded a negative 1 percent return.)

Finally, Brownstein writes:

[T]he gap between the system’s revenues and obligations, relatively speaking, isn’t that daunting–less than 1 percent of the economy’s expected output over the next 75 years. 

Does Mr. Brownstein really appreciate how large that is? In present value terms, the Social Security actuaries report that the present value of Social Security’s shortfall over the next 75-years equals $5.4 trillion. That’s one-third of current annual GDP. In other words we have to devote that sum to earning interest each year for 75 years to cover Social Security’s financial gap.

Alternatively, since payrolls equal only one-half of national output, it means that payroll taxes would have to increase by an average of about 2.0 percent per year if they are levied over all wage earners.  However, the tax increase is to be levied only on those earning $250,000 or more.  There are about 3 million U.S. taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, with average income of about $500,000. (I’m rounding up based on information for 2006 available here.)  That makes a tax base of $1.5 trillion. (Actually, this is likely to be too large because I’m counting total income, not taxable income, which would be much smaller.) Raising the equivalent amount of revenues from these high earners (who face the highest marginal income tax rates already and are likely to alter their work effort in response to still higher taxes) would imply increasing their average tax rates by almost 11 percentage points. Of course, because some of the adjustment will be through benefit cuts and indexing the retirement age to increasing longevity, the tax increases that must be levied on high earners would be smaller. 

But are those benefit cuts politically realistic? Americans already face a normal retirement age of 66, and it is scheduled to increase to 67 in little more than a decade. Extrapolating from the French response to increasing their pensionable age from just 60 to 62, Americans’ would probably end up opening a third war front to resist further increases in Social Security’s retirement ages — a “generational war” here at home.

So where do we go from here?  One answer may be to first introduce “add-on” personal accounts using the 2.0 percentage points of payrolls – the amount required to plug Social Security’s current shortfall. This would not be a “tax” as the funds would be invested in personal accounts – and it would enable low earners an opportunity to partake in the long-term wealth creation mechanism that they have heretofore been unable to exploit.  As I have argued here, if this amount is effectively saved and invested – by insuring that the government does not borrow and spend those savings — it would create space for a “carve-out” addition to the “add on” personal accounts, increasing retirement wealth even more.  Finally, with the stock markets relatively stable and current P/E ratios of broad market indexes close to historical averages, now would be the right time to begin such a reform program for Social Security. 

Would liberal policymakers and analysts take on this approach?  No prizes for guessing the answer.

Liberal Dogma on Social Security Redux is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Social Security Trustees released their annual report yesterday, showing a small improvement in the system’s finances over the long-term.  That’s rather surprising given that the recent recession has reduced the program’s revenues and brought forward the date when the program begins to drain money from the general budget — from 2016 last year to 2015 in the new report.  The Trust Fund exhaustion date is 2037, the same as it was in last year’s report. 

The new health care law is likely to increase the program’s revenues as employers reduce payroll-tax-free health insurance coverage and offset the reduction in employee compensation through higher wages that would be subject to payroll taxes.  This sets up a competition between the health care law–induced increase in Social Security revenues and declines in revenues and increases in outlays for other reasons — a sluggish economy, improving longevity, the addition of another year at the end of the 75-year projection horizon, and changes in economic and demographic data, assumptions, and methods.

The positive revenue effect of the health care law (14 basis points) more than offsets the negative effects of all of the other factors (6 basis points) on the system’s long-range actuarial balance. That yields a total improvement of the program’s actuarial balance from –2.00 percent of taxable payroll to –1.92 percent.  In next year’s report, however, this year’s “legislative” effects may be folded into changes from technical adjustments and incoming data. We may never know whether today’s assumptions on the revenue effects of the health care law are correct or not. 

It could be that those assumptions are too large, especially if Congress postpones the tax on Cadillac health care plans because of pressure from unions. It could also be too small if many employers decide to eliminate health insurance coverage and opt to pay the less costly penalty.  On balance, I’ve concluded that, faced with such wide uncertainty about future outcomes, the Social Security trustees have chosen to be relatively conservative in their estimates of the health care law’s revenue effect. 

Another curious item is that the program’s long-range imbalance increased from $15.1 trillion to $16.1 trillion. However, the report states that “the near-term negative effects on employment of the slightly deeper recession than assumed last year are offset by higher than expected real growth in the average earnings level” (Section D: Projections of Future Financial Status).  As a result, the program’s total (infinite-horizon) imbalance ratio declines from 3.4 percent in 2009 to 3.3 percent today.

Note that a deeper recession and higher unemployment than was assumed last year does not necessarily justify a correspondingly faster recovery, with unchanged long-term equilibrium unemployment and earnings growth rates.  The trustees are discounting the possibility that the unemployment rate may remain higher than was assumed last year and that, therefore, earnings may not rebound any faster compared to last year’s assumptions.  It appears that that incoming data on unemployment and GDP growth played little if any role in informing assumptions about future earnings growth rates. 

Finally, it should be noted that this year there were no public trustees to oversee and modulate the report as it was being produced.

The State of Social Security: Maybe a Little Better, Maybe a Little Worse? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

I was listening to NPR in the car yesterday, when a report came on about the implications of deflation — which apparently is the latest concern regarding financial markets. The report nearly made me fall out of my seat from bewilderment and frustration.

Adam Davidson, the NPR reporter, waxed eloquent about how deflation turns normal economic and investment calculus on its head.  But his explanation was so poor that he ended up saying exactly the opposite of what he should have said.

Here’s how it went for me:

Davidson: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have an amazing investment opportunity for you. Give me $100, just a hundred, and in one year I promise it will be worth 93 bucks. We call it the deflation special.”

My reaction: No, sir! Under deflation, $100 today would increase in value to $107 (assuming your implicit rate of deflation).  Help! Stop the car! …Wait, I’m the one driving…what just happened?

Davidson: “All right, seriously, nobody is giving anybody a hundred bucks just so they can lose seven.”

My reaction: No, no, please, please take my money! I’d give you a million dollars if I had that amount. I really would!

Davidson: “That’s the opposite of an investment opportunity, which is precisely why economists and central bankers get terrified when they hear the word deflation.”

My reaction: Well, a small amount of deflation can be consistent with flexible prices. It’s only rapid spiraling deflation that we should worry about.  But the same is true about rapid spiraling inflation.

Davidson: “Technically, deflation means that the prices of all kinds of goods and services keep falling, rather than what they normally do, which is rise. And deflation means that not just one investment but all investments are worth less next year because the currency they are based on — like the U.S. dollar — is going to be worth less next year.”

My reaction: That word “technically” should be banned from his vocabulary.  Again, the confusion here arises from using the word “currency.” Deflation means lower prices tomorrow compared to today and, therefore, a higher value of each dollar.  Indeed, all debts appreciate in value in a deflationary environment.

Davidson: “Why pay money to build a new factory or buy a house or hire an employee or go to school if the payoff will be worth (less) than the money you put in?”

My reaction: Lenders would be happy to lend money for investment projects because deflation implies a higher rate of return on them. It’s the borrowers and entrepreneurs who would not want to borrow funds because deflation escalates the real value of debtors’ liabilities.

Davidson: “Deflation, once it starts, is extremely hard to stop. Which is why the Federal Reserve is doing everything it can to prevent it.  Although, all the tools used to prevent deflation, like increasing the money supply and keeping interest rates incredibly low, can cause another problem: inflation.”

My reaction: What is it that you want, man? Make up your mind!

Davidson: “Now, central bankers tend to think that they can stop inflation more easily than deflation. So given the choice, they’ll inflate.”

My reaction: Those horrible Fed officials! I always suspected they were up to no good — always ginning up inflation. Now I know why!

I wonder which economics school Davidson (and his editor) attended. My guess: none. Let’s see … what’s on the next radio channel?

Deflation is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The annual bloviate-fest on Social Security has begun, even before the Social Security Trustees’ report has been released this year.  Apparently the report is to be released next week — after a three-month delay from its statutory release deadline of April 1. 

There’s concern from groups interested in preserving Social Security that President Obama’s National Commission on Deficit Reduction will propose changes to the program involving benefit cuts. These groups, which include the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, NOW, and the NAACP have issued and allegedly rebutted five “myths” about Social Security.  But their selection of myths and myth-busting arguments are weak and involves questionable arguments.

Below is a list of the twisted logic that these groups are using to convince voters that all’s well with Social Security’s finances and that we should not worry and just be happy. Also below are my reactions to the “faux-myth-busters” arguments.

Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis.  By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a ‘T’).  It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever. After 2037, it’ll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits — and again, that’s without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers’ retirement decades ago.  Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.

Real Reality: We’re in a vortex, and these folks refuse to extend help. Yes, I also don’t like the “crisis” terminology.  A better descriptor is “vortex,” the upper reaches of which can seem calm, for a time.  But eventually, we’ll realize that what we thought was a good place to be is really an inexorable path to the doom of being spun around super fast.

Yes, Social Security will have a surplus (of Treasury IOUs) of $4.6 trillion by 2023. But, notwithstanding the “T” attached to that sum, all’s not well.  By 2023, the program’s net liabilities (the shortfall of future revenues relative to future benefit commitments under existing laws) will exceed $20 trillion (note, also with a “T”).  Last I checked, 20 exceeds 4.6 by about four fold.

The fact that Social Security “will be able to pay” 75% of scheduled benefits after 2037 means we would have to impose a 25% benefit cut at that time if no adjustments are made earlier.  It’s said that the natural human instinct for justice emanates from a simple thought experiment — of placing oneself in the shoes of the victims. In this case, it’s those poor future souls who would have to acquiesce to a 25 percent benefit cut.  But they would be forced to do so only because the faux-myth-busting authors shrieked in horror when confronted with a much smaller benefit cut that would be required now to place the program’s finances on a sustainable course.

Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What’s more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly — since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut. 

Real Reality: Longer life spans, earlier retirement trends, a sharp decline in fertility that ended the baby-boom in the 1960s, and our failure to prepare for boomer retirements by saving adequately have all combined to expose Social Security (and our living standards) to a high risk of insolvency.

The “myth-busting” authors argue that infant mortality reductions caused most of the gains in longevity, but also that high earners benefitted more.  But the fact is that American longevity rates, as calculated by the National Center for Health Statistics, place life-expectancy at age 15 to be about 51 years in 1940 (through age 66).  Today (using 2006 life tables), it is 63.4 years (through age 78.4).  Combined with the fact that retirees beginning to collect Social Security benefits earlier (at age 62 rather than age 65), we have witnessed a very significant increase in retirement life spans.  

Skewed distributions of longevity gains by earning levels are not surprising. Higher earners are generally better educated, they know how to adopt healthy lifestyles, and have the incomes to do so.  The solution is not to take benefit cuts off the table, but to reform the system’s structure by eliminating statutory age eligibility rules AND providing stronger incentives to work longer — say, by gradually reducing payroll taxes with age and improving benefit replacement rates as incentives for working longer and beginning benefit collection later.  Incentives for such conservative choices on resource disposition (working longer and saving) would be especially enhanced the more “retirement benefits” are financed out of workers’ own resources compared to maintaining dependency on a regular government check.

Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security. 

Reality: Social Security doesn’t need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here’s a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share.  If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.  But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.

Real Reality: The system is badly in need of a structural fix.  Increasing taxes won’t strengthen Social Security, but only increase government spending as short-term Trust Fund surpluses increase.

The system was designed to be fair to everyone by not extending Social Security to the upper reaches of earnings for high earners. The program is intended to provide social insurance against the “loss of income due to old age,” not against the “loss of high income due to old age.”  High earners could self-insure against those losses if they wish by appropriately saving more for retirement. 

Under the current system, upper earners already pay more than their fair share for the appropriate level of social insurance. The Social Security benefit formula replaces only 15 cents to the dollar of their average wages above a certain threshold, whereas 90 cents are replaced for each dollar of average wages at the low end of the earnings scale. 

Moreover, increasing payroll taxes on high earners, many of whom are self employed small business owners, may push them into cutting back on business investments and hiring—precisely the activities needed to revive a sluggish economy.   

Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs

Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn’t full of IOUs, it’s full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.⁷ The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.

Real Reality: We cannot really say one way or the other. 

We cannot observe how much the government would have spent if no Trust Fund surpluses had ever accrued. 

Two academic studies on the time trends of government spending and Trust Fund surpluses conclude that government spending increased more than dollar-for-dollar when Trust Fund surpluses increased compared to when those surpluses did not increase — suggesting (not proving) that exactly the opposite conclusion might be true.

But if we maintain that we truly don’t know whether Trust Fund surpluses are dissipated or saved — the likelihood that Trust Fund surpluses are spent must be placed at 50 percent: A very high gamble that we are dissipating Trust Fund surpluses — and odds that I would not recommend, especially for Social Security surpluses meant to be sequestered for future benefit payments. We need a better “lock box” than the Trust Funds provide in order to take Social Security fully and truly off budget.

Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit

Reality: It’s not just wrong—it’s impossible!  By law, Social Security’s funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can’t add one penny to the deficit.

Real Reality: By law, they are intended to be separate but, in fact, Social Security payroll-tax surpluses are no different from any other federal revenues.

Saying that Social Security must pay its own way does not preclude benefit cuts as a means of payment.  In reality, reforms to the program that are adopted eventually are likely to be pre-announced well in advance to allow affected participants to adjust their personal finances to the reality of smaller future benefits (through whatever channel) or higher taxes (of whatever kind).

But if people react by revising their expectations of smaller government retirement support and adjust their behaviors by working longer and saving more, then (a) they must be the rational, forward-looking types of individuals (whose existence is vehemently denied by defenders of Social Security), and (b) when it comes to direct changes to individuals’ resources via Social Security reforms, there’s really not much difference between tax increases and benefit cuts that are announced well in advance. To individuals, both approaches would appear as a reduction of future resources and would provoke a behavioral response. 

But a vast difference would arise in terms of the types of private behavioral response that the two alternatives would produce.  Pre-announced reductions in scheduled benefits would induce longer working lifetimes, more pre- and post-retirement saving, and larger transfers of human and physical capital to forthcoming generations of workers, which would increase their productivity. Tax increases, on the other hand, would provoke withdrawals from the work force, disincentives to saving, capital flight to low-tax countries, and reduced worker productivity. 

The faux-myth-busters need to be exposed for what they are: proponents of preserving their share of the national economic pie at the expense of our children and grandchildren. They are opponents of policies that would sustain faster economic growth and living standard improvements for successive generations.

Social Security Bloviate-fest is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

My latest book Social Security: A Fresh Look at Reform Alternatives (available here) argues that it’s not just labor quantity — the number of employees who are accruing future Social Security benefits — that will determine the size of Social Security’s future imbalances (and, incidentally, those of Medicare, and the size of deficits for all of government), but also the quality of that labor — the value of the work those employees are doing. 

Declining labor quality (as experienced baby boomers retire) will reduce taxable payrolls faster than is being projected by the Social Security Administration and the Congressional Budget Office.  The result is even more beneficiaries receiving Social Security checks, and lower-wage workers who will be funding those checks.

In the book, I construct a detailed simulation of U.S. demographic and economic forces over the coming decades to estimate how much of a drag declining labor quality will exert on labor productivity, countering the effects of capital accumulation and technological advance.

Now James Heckman has coauthored a study suggesting that the same thing is happening in Europe, traceable in part to public policies promoting less use and low maintenance of worker skills through the early retirement incentives of their public pension, welfare, and health systems. 

So it is quite clear how the developed world (Anglo-Saxon and mainland Europe) will spiral downward.  We’ll all vote to “strengthen” social insurance systems (the U.S. health care “reform” this year being the latest example), only to further weaken incentives for the young to acquire skills, further erode the tax base, which in turn will promote the further “strengthening” of social insurance protections … and so on. 

My old idea of a “covert generational war” is playing out before our very (but fully blind) eyes.

Two months ago, EU officials were even flirting with the idea of a cross-country crisis insurance institution — a European Monetary Fund. 

One ironic element in the ongoing European crisis: Remember how the EU’s erstwhile Stability and Growth Pact included penalties on nations who exceeded the 3 percent fiscal deficit rule?  Turns out, penalties must now be paid by the “successful” countries — mainly Germany and France — by coughing up the aid packages!

Heating Up the Covert Generational War is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

John Kay’s column in yesterday’s Financial Times criticizes government guarantees to banks because they involve hidden but large costs. According to Kay:

• Such guarantees distort competition: sheltered banks outperform rivals not because of greater efficiency, but because capital becomes cheaper to obtain.
• Sheltered banks gain too-big-to-fail status, which creates barriers to entry for smaller, more efficient banks.
• Relief from business risk leads to more risk taking, AKA moral hazard.
• Cheaper private risk management incentives are reduced within and outside the bank.

Other kinds of government guarantees, such as social insurance, also involve large hidden costs. Social Security and Medicare’s guarantee of a paid holiday with medical care for the rest of retirees’ lives generates the same types of costs:

• Labor competition is reduced because the programs induce early worker retirements, which leads to higher wage costs, on average, and lower national output.
• Workers who believe they will receive Social Security and Medicare will engage in lower personal saving, which means less capital formation and lower economic efficiency.
• Retirement income guarantees induce riskier personal savings portfolios, AKA moral hazard.
• Guaranteed retirement income means poorer financial knowledge and poorer risk management.

And now, retiree political power is too big to fail as well!

How come when Kay writes about market distortions from government guarantees for banks, he gets published; but when I do the same about government guarantees for people, I get the cold shoulder from editorial page editors?

The Cost of Government Guarantees is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) blocked an attempt by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) to move — without a recorded vote or CBO score – H.R. 3631, legislation to freeze Medicare Part B premiums. These premiums are automatically deducted from the Social Security checks of seniors, almost all of whom are enrolled in the Medicare Part B (Supplemental Medical Insurance) program.

Social Security recipients will not receive a COLA increase in their monthly checks beginning January 2010 because inflation between October 2008 and September 2009 was negative. But if Part B premiums increase, the dollar amount of their Social Security checks will decrease beginning in January 2010.

What would happen if the Part B premium were frozen for 2010? Seniors would get a double benefit. First they are gaining from a zero reduction in their Social Security checks even though inflation in 2008-2009 was negative. That means the purchasing power of their Social Security checks will be larger (assuming inflation remains low during the 4th quarter of this year).

On top of that, a frozen Part B premium would provide them with more generous Part B coverage because health care prices became more expensive during 2009 relative to other goods and services.

Senator Coburn’s action in blocking the premium freeze is courageous and correct. In a small but important way, it combats the busting of the federal budget by already generous Medicare Part B benefits that seniors receive — three-quarters of which are funded out of federal general revenues (that is, financed out of taxes paid by younger workers).

Note that the fiscal gimmickry this action prevents is not limited to seniors’ Medicare benefits. Some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are intent on raiding the Medicare Improvement Fund (MIF) established in 2008 to offset cuts in future physician reimbursements. That fund is actually empty right now — it is not scheduled to receive monies until 2014. But an “advance funding” provision in its legislation would allow lawmakers to make transfers from the Treasury’s general fund as a stop-gap mechanism until MIF’s revenues become available.

Of course, when it comes time to deal with the issue of physician payment cuts, there will be zero dollars left in the MIF. They will have been used up to finance the 2010 Part B premium freeze — and Congress will turn to taxpayers and demand more money to bail out physicians.

Frozen Minds on the Medicare Part B Premium Freeze is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

University of Missouri-Kansas City political scientist Max Skidmore recently criticized as “add[ing] nothing” Cal-Berkeley economist Konstantin Magin’s arguments in support of Social Security personal accounts. Let’s examine some of Skidmore’s arguments in favor of the current system:

Magin seems almost to promise guaranteed, risk free returns. Even if this were correct, it is irrelevant. Social Security is not an investment scheme; it offers more than retirement benefits, and its low administrative expenses make it more efficient than any private scheme.

Skidmore’s focus on just administrative costs misrepresents the program’s true costs, which includes distortions in saving and work effort in the economy. The payroll taxes that fund Social Security — to the extent that they are perceived as unrelated to future benefits — reduce worker incentives and, at the same time, Social Security retirement benefits induce workers to exit earlier from the work force. Those effects are well-documented by economists David Wise (Harvard) and Jonathan Gruber (MIT). Tax-financed benefits reduce personal saving (as demonstrated by Harvard’s Martin Feldstein), and the program’s institutional structure — the Trust Fund’s investment restrictions — means the program’s surpluses are not truly saved and invested (as argued by Penn’s Kent Smetters and Stanford’s John Shoven). Thus, overall the program reduces national saving. Those resource costs should be added to obtain a true picture of how costly Social Security is.

It has a mildly redistributive effect: workers who earn less receive a greater portion of their earnings in benefits than do those who earn more.

The redistributive effect is not mild at all when you consider its redistribution from younger and future generations toward older ones. There are any number of measures developed by well-respected economists — such as Alan Auerbach (Berkeley) and Larry Kotlikoff’s (Boston University) generational accounting measures — that document the massive intergenerational redistribution that the program imposes. That redistribution remains hidden because of the cash-flow budget accounting adopted by official scoring agencies. As the program’s shortfalls compel policy adjustments in the future, the true scope of the program’s redistributive force will become obvious — but it will be too late to avoid the negative economic effects of forced higher taxes and smaller benefits for future generations.

[I]nsurance against long life is very valuable, and private annuity markets appear to be quite costly[.]

But annuity markets are costly because we already live in a world with Social Security, which forcibly annuitizes retirement resources. And there is evidence that private insurance purchases do not fully unwind the forced annuitization via Social Security (Auerbach et al.). This is increasingly so as the intensity of desires to bequeath assets to children has eroded over time, as Kotlikoff and I have shown using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

Social Security effectively monopolizes the annuity market and any residual purchasers on private markets are the high-risk ones — those likely to live longer than average. That explains the high cost of private annuities. If Social Security were altered by the introduction of personal accounts, private annuity sales would increase and broader risk pooling would lead to lower costs.

Nearly one third of all Social Security checks go to children, and to others younger than retirement age.

Children’s Social Security benefits as survivors and dependents could be replaced easily by independent insurance programs under a Social Security reform that establishes personal accounts.

Because of the independence it gives to seniors, young couples now rarely are required to support their elderly relatives, as documented by Kathleen Mcgarry and Robert Schoeni.

Again, this is an extremely shortsighted view. By encouraging independence among the elderly from their children, Social Security is destroying family cohesion and extended family links that are crucial for transferring human capital to the next generation. By increasing the costs for younger workers through the program’s excessively costly payroll taxes, it is also promoting lower fertility — thereby weakening a key growth-promoting factor in developing countries. Studies by Washington University’s Michele Boldrin indicate that, in countries with generous public pensions, fertility rates have declined.

Skidmore’s Weak Defense of Social Security is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Government equity investment or rescue of the broader (non-financial) economy is a mistake.  It will damage economic efficiency in the long-term by diluting the value of private shareholders and reduce incentives for cost cutting and product quality innovations.

Of course, the current focus is not on long-term incentives but on how to shorten and moderate the current economic recession.  The constantly changing mix of initiatives from the Treasury suggest:

1. A lack of knowledge/vision about what to do–so they’re throwing money at everything that moves in the hope that something will work.  These ex-Goldman Sachs personnel that make up the Paulson team are probably not economists–and certainly not good ones.  The majority are probably MBAs with little understanding of how things really work in the economy. They probably have a microeconomic firm-specific orientation and management skills that are unsuited for their current responsibilities. If I’m wrong, I’d be very surprised. If I’m right, it’s showing.

2. An attempt to assuage competing political constituencies and provide benefits to potential future supporters.

3. An attempt to distribute wealth to those people/firms that the next Congress and president won’t support–by tying their hands through government ownership of firms.

4. A deliberate and cynical attempt to damage the economy even more to make life difficult for the Obama administration.

I think # 4 is cynical on my part. But although unlikely, it is not impossible given how polarized the political atmosphere was during the GW Bush presidency.

Broad government involvement in private firms to solve the economic crisis is a dangerous turn.  The shareholders in these firms took risks and should bear the consequences of their decisions. If they sink, the economy may recover faster as other businesses are created over time in non-housing and less energy intensive sectors.  Supporting existing, inefficient firms run by poor decision makers is likely to prolong the recession because keeping those firms and their managers afloat won’t help to restore market confidence.  And, this policy will encourage future investors/managers to take even riskier decisions under expectations of yet another government bailout if they fail. Finally, government debt-financed wealth injections are worsening the nation’s finances–we’re already swimming in huge and unpayable entitlement obligations to a growing number of retirees, disabled, poor, and the sick.

The government purchase of securitized auto loans is probably intended to insure auto company creditors, who would otherwise become bankrupt and prolong the credit-flow freeze.  It’s another source of bad assets on bank and non-bank financial firm portfolios that’s contributing to the market failure in that sector.  I’m more sympathetic to the original TARP idea than government officials seem to be. That way the government’s involvement in the private sector will be limited and it will remove bad assets from their balance sheets–which are responsible for the pervasive uncertainty among financial market players and is causing the credit freeze.  But under TARP, government officials don’t get to choose whom to support–they must buy up assets from whoever is currently holding them–be it domestic or foreign firms, “friends and relatives” or “strangers and enemies.”

Helicopter Paulson is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

A paper by three Minneapolis Fed economists is making the rounds — disputing any funding crisis for non-financial corporate firms. IMHO, this is a very disingenuous paper.  All of these so-called myths are really non-myths. Basically, the paper’s focus on “bank lending” is mistaken.  Focusing on total borrowing by non-financial sectors shows the accurate picture.

Myth 1. Bank lending to nonfinancial corporations and individuals has declined sharply.

The financial market crisis is in the non-bank financial sector, not in the banking sector.  And the authors say (correctly) that the majority (80 percent) non-financial sector borrowing is not from banks.  So why focus on bank lending to the non-financial firms to see if there’s a credit crunch?

Myth 2. Interbank lending is essentially nonexistent.

If that’s not true, so what? (See response to Myth 1.) Banks are more tightly regulated by the Fed (compared to non-bank financial companies by the SEC).  So banks did not hold the riskiest mortgage backed securities (although they originated and sequestered such assets in off-balance sheet entities and “adverse selected” the best ones for their own portfolio, selling the rest to non-bank financial and other firms).  So, again, the banking sector is not where the financial market crisis occurred — it happened in the non-bank financial sector.

Myth 3. Commercial paper issuance by nonfinancial corporations has declined sharply and rates have risen to unprecedented levels.

But Federal Reserve Board data on total commercial paper borrowing by non-financial sectors took a huge hit in the 2nd quarter of 2008  (see Flow of Funds, Table F.2 from release Z.1 September 18, 2008, line 3).  Thus, it’s not surprising that bank credit to non-financial companies may be increasing: Those companies may be drawing more heavily on their lines of credit with banks because non-bank sources of borrowing are constricted. So, where’s the mystery?

Myth 4. Banks play a large role in channeling funds from savers to borrowers.

Again, non-bank financial (and other) companies supply the overwhelming share of non-financial sector borrowing. And the non-bank financial sector is where the financial market crisis is occurring.  So, there IS a funding crisis for non-financial firms. Get with it, Minneapolis Fed!

Non-Myths about the Financial Crisis is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In the now-heated effort of D.C. policymakers and pundits to afix blame for the current financial mess, some fingers are being pointed at the Federal Reserve. The criticism: the Fed kept interest rates too low in the early 2000s, resulting in a lot of easy money. That money, in turn, created the housing bubble and subsequent collapse, ushering in the financial crisis.

Is this criticism sound?

Figure 1 shows the three-month Treasury Bill rate and the Federal funds rate over the past several years. It indicates that, yes, money was easy in the early 2000s, but not because of the Fed. The Fed was forced to reduce and maintain a low Fed funds rate in response to the market’s high price (and corresponding low interest rate) for short-maturity securities such as 3-month T-Bills.

So why were market rates so low?

Chairman Bernanke has suggested that foreign capital inflows were the true cause of easy money earlier this decade. Figure 2 shows that net international capital inflows surged beginning in 1998 and remained high thereafter. Superficially, the interest rate vs. international capital inflows correlation is not strong enough to clinch his argument. Critics could ask why interest rates did not fall until January 2001. Perhaps the answer would be that a strong U.S. economy and stock market during the late 1990s held up interest rates for a time. But then why did asset markets tank in January 2000, followed by the economy in January 2001? Some folks might respond that the Fed funds rate was unsustainably high during 2000. But we don’t really know the answer as yet.

Another question is why did market short-term interest rates increase after mid-2004 despite strong capital inflows? I don’t think anyone has a good answer for that, either.

But let’s return to the fact that the Fed had to cut its funds rate earlier this decade in order to keep pace with declining short-term market interest rates. So long as the Fed’s objective is to maintain the amount of bank reserves in circulation at a level that is just enough to achieve its non-inflationary growth objective and to do so through an interest rate targeting operation, it has no choice but to set the Fed funds rate as close as possible to short-term market interest rates. Otherwise, the Fed would risk injecting too much (or too little) liquidity into the economy — precisely what it’s now being incorrectly blamed for.

This brings us to the question of what, in light of the current crisis, the Fed should do to achieve its sometimes-conflicting objectives of maximizing non-inflationary growth and also ensuring systemic stability — that is, to avoid widespread failures among large financial institutions of the kind we have witnessed this year. The Fed appears to have no systematic approach or tools to achieve its second objective.

One possible method is stricter imposition of regulatory constraints, to prevent home price inflation from incentivizing excess and risky mortgage lending. But that approach was rejected by Fed and Treasury officials (see yesterday’s NYT). And they did that, possibly, for good short-term reasons: a buoyant asset sector returns political dividends, but the systemic problems happen on someone else’s watch. Or, more charitably, Fed officials may have genuinely believed that financial innovations (such as dynamic hedging) meant that the risks were spread so broadly that they didn’t matter anymore.

Another possibility is for the Fed to incorporate asset prices in its measure(s) of price stability — that is, include home and stock prices instead of just consumer goods when trying to determine if inflation is occurring. Doing so could lead the Fed to implement pre-emptive monetary strikes against perceived systemic risks in order to avoid an asset inflation party. That would be consistent with the definition of the Fed’s role (take away the punch-bowl just before the party really gets going), but it may not be any less “socialist.” Fed officials have now acknowledged that they are studying this issue and the jury is still out on it.

However, now we are paying the price for the lack of a proper market-oriented governance framework for dealing with systemic instability — by gravitating toward direct socialist control of the financial sector in an unproductively panicked manner.

The Blame Game is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The failure of the bailout plan essentially shows the huge lack of confidence among the public that it would achieve its objectives. It also registers doubt about the government’s ability to implement it successfully.

The impasse shows how blunt fiscal policy is and how inept politicians are in managing the economy. The current set of problems did not arise overnight — they festered in the form of government favoritism toward housing finance companies which overextended their operations and ultimately toppled over. Now, those policies have come full circle to rest at Congress’s doorstep. Problem is, they will soon visit our doorsteps too in the form of a weaker economy.

Now that the bailout proposal has failed, Congress may seek a new approach. More likely, the existing plan will be tweaked to enable passage in a re-vote. But delay and political drama will further sap public confidence in Congress and weaken consumer confidence in the economy.

That may mean a deeper recession and trigger calls for still larger bailouts to salvage the financial sector in the future. But a larger bailout package will also be more dangerous. Larger short-term increases in federal borrowing may destabilize international capital inflows and reduce confidence in the dollar.

Overall, it’s not a pretty picture — but score one for supporters of the free market who insist on allowing market reorganization of the financial sector to continue unimpeded…albeit at high risk to the economy over the next few months.

It’s Not a Pretty Picture is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In three different, recent op-eds, I’ve read that only during boom times should we worry about moral hazard — the idea that some actor will engage in overly risky behavior because he believes that he’ll be bailed out if the risk goes bad. The most recent op-ed to say this is Charles Goodhart’s, in today’s FT. 

OK, I did worry about moral hazard in 1998 when stock prices peaked. And again in 2006 during the housing price boom. 

Question: Instead of worrying, when is it time to “do” something about moral hazard? 

It seems the answer is never. During boom times, no one asks for government to play Good Samaritan. And during a bust — like now — when there’s opportunity to tell negligent investors to “go swim in the lake,” we’re told, well, the time to worry about moral hazard is during boom times! 

That’s another reason to call moral hazard the ”Samaritan’s Dilemma.”

When to Worry about Moral Hazard? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Get ready for Washington D.C.’s Mall to be filled with seniors in the not-too-distant future.

About 25 percent of seniors depend entirely on Social Security for their consumption. And for two-thirds of them, Social Security makes up the majority of their monthly income. With soaring fuel and food prices, they are beginning to complain about being unable to make ends meet — as in, having to cut down on leisure and travel activities.

The rise in gas, food, and commodity prices is unlikely to be a bubble and won’t ”burst” anytime soon. Furthermore, the Fed’s recent interest rate–cutting binge has promoted a weaker dollar and risks higher future inflation and inflation expectations. That means our itinerant seniors will soon demand a larger inflation adjustment on their monthly checks than allowed by Social Security’s post-retirement benefit formula.

No prizes for guessing whether Congress will capitulate!

Retirement and Fuel Prices: A Match Made In Heaven? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog